ICYMI

How Kate Middleton’s Disappearance Redefined Monoculture

We break down one of 2024’s biggest internet stories and ask: what’s the recipe for a rare monocultural event?

Episode Notes

This week, ICYMI and the Never Post podcast are collaborating on two episodes surrounding 2024’s biggest internet monocultural moment: Kate Middleton’s disappearance. It’s been more than a month since Kate announced she’d started preventative chemotherapy treatments following a cancer diagnosis. Which means it’s also been just over a month since conspiracy theories about the princess ran rampant across the internet. As an increasingly algorithmic internet silos us further into our own little content niches, all-consuming events like Kate Middleton’s disappearance are fewer and far between. So what does it take, in 2024, to capture the internet’s attention and create these rare monocultural moments?

This podcast is produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton.

This episode was made in collaboration with the Never Post team, which includes Hans Buetow, Mike Rugnetta, Jason Oberholtzer and Wil Williams.

About the Show

Join Candice Lim and Rachelle Hampton twice a week as they gaze deep into the online abyss—and tell you what’s gazing back. All episodes

Hosts

  • Candice Lim is the co-host of ICYMI, Slate’s podcast about internet culture. She comes to Slate from NPR, where she was an assistant producer at Pop Culture Happy Hour. Prior to that, she was an intern at NPR’s How I Built This, the Hollywood Reporter, WBUR, and the Orange County Register. She graduated from Boston University with a bachelor's degree in journalism and grew up in Orange County, California.

  • Rachelle Hampton is a culture writer and reporter at Slate and co-host of ICYMI. Her work has appeared in the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian Magazine, and In These Times. She still hasn't recovered from Tumblr’s demise.